University-educated voters line up behind the former president

TWO years ago, Donald Trump’s ambitions for a second administration hung in the balance. His refusal to admit defeat to Joe Biden in 2020 and the subsequent storming of the Capitol had been the final straw for some Republicans who wanted to reclaim their party.

The distaste for Mr Trump among NON-MAGA Republicans was wavering to the extent that he was being beaten in polls by the then up-and-coming GOP star Ron Desantis.

That year, more than three quarters of university-educated Republicans said they wanted a non-trump candidate to take on Joe Biden in 2024. Fast forward to today and the political landscape has shifted again, with some degree-educated Republicans circling back to get behind Mr Trump.

While the majority of the former president’s support in Iowa came from his watertight base of non-educated voters, he made a 16-point gain among university-educated voters when comparing the CNN entrance polls with the 2016 caucus results.

A 2022 Suffolk University/usa Today poll found that 76 per cent of university-educated voters wanted a nontrump Republican to be the party’s presidential nominee. The pollster earlier this month found that 60 per cent of Republican voters with a university degree supported Mr Trump. So why are some educated Republicans making about-turns to support Mr Trump?

Dante Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, thinks the combination of a distaste for Joe Biden and concerns over the economy and immigration have prompted voters to revert. “You could point to Biden as one reason,” he said. “Also, I think issues that we hear… immigration, the economy, inflation, all those things I think leads a lot of those voters to say, ‘you know, things were actually pretty good during that Trump presidency. Can we go back to that?’”

Prof Scala said Trump campaign adverts in New Hampshire often focused on the idea of “don’t you remember how it was when things weren’t so out of control?”

“I think a lot of college-educated Republicans say, ‘yeah, he tweeted too much, he was out of control sometimes, but there was strength there,’” he said. The issue of border security and migration looms large ahead of this year’s general election.

The crisis has spread from border towns and states into cities including New York and Chicago as they struggle to cope with the influx of migrants.

David Paleologos, the director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center, said the economy and migration are Mr Trump’s “issues”. “Some of these voters have put themselves under the Trump banner because they have serious issues about the economy or immigration that they don’t feel are being solved by President Biden,” he said.

Mr Trump’s policies helped win over Iowa caucus-goer Eric von Muenster.

The college-educated account manager at a chemicals giant said he had been curious about Nikki Haley’s campaign but voted for Mr Trump. “Trump is my guy right now,” he said. “He’s got great policies, and he’s a fighter.”

Mr Paleologos said that while some university-educated voters might initially have had concerns about Mr Trump’s mounting legal woes and his “viability”, these have faded away.

“As time has gone on, with none of these legal cases showing a conviction you have a scenario where those concerns have been put aside,” he said.

‘A lot of college-educated Republicans say, “yeah, he was out of control, but there was strength there” ’